Those words often conjure up warm, cheerful thoughts of family customs, twinkling lights, gift-giving, snowflakes, and the aroma of a freshly-baked pie. However, for the unwary employer or employee, they can also conjure up potential legal issues in the labor and employment context.

Exporting products to foreign markets was once something reserved for large corporations with extensive resources. However, in today’s business environment, many small business owners are looking for the opportunity to expand their market reach and to truly participate in the global economy. This is becoming more and more feasible for small businesses with rapid advances in technology and communication. However, there is still a learning curve and certain capital investment required to export profitably.

We’ve all heard stories time and time again from our friends and families about their cosigning mistakes. We may hear of a friend who cosigned on a loan for his girlfriend, they broke up, she stopped paying, and it destroyed his credit, or, maybe a parent stepped in as a cosigner for a child with no established credit for his first car and ended up making the payments.

“DBA” stands for “Doing Business As”, and can be abbreviated DBA, dba, d.b.a. or d/b/a. It is also known as an assumed name, fictitious name, or trade name. An individual or a business entity can obtain one or more DBAs.

So you’ve gone through the trouble of getting a judgment against someone who owes you money for whatever reason: because you’ve loaned money that wasn’t repaid, because a poor job was done in constructing the addition on your home or because you were caused injury and there was no insurance to cover it. Your troubles are over right? Think again.

Banks, credit card companies and other businesses use credit scores to estimate how likely you are to pay back money you borrow. A higher score makes it easier to qualify for a loan or lower interest rates. Many scores range from 300-850 but each company may use different ranges.